Insomniac
by NeonWorld
Summary: In which Sasuke is not sleeping why? Well, that's exactly what Team 7 wants to find out, whether he wants to cooperate or not. Naruto is finding it easier to taunt him, much to his pain tolerance's dismay.


**Neon: **Some random crack to exercise my funny bone? I hope so. Maybe this is just an excuse to abuse Sasuke some more. XD And this is totally for Meg. Even if she doesn't read it. Chapter seven for Collision Course is underway; planning it out and stuff are bogging me down. This is just something fun to write, to get the creative juices flowing. XD

Disclaimer: I've got a zinger for each and every one of you. (Throws hearts)

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It was weird how he knew such useless things; how he could remember totally menial statements. The reason probably being that everyone found some subconscious interest in random facts, and that was why everyone seemed to know them.

For example, he knew that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body.

But Sasuke begged to differ. He had significant and totally valid evidence to the theory that eyelids are stronger even than the tongue. Really, there was no other way to explain it. How else could he still have his eyes open, however slightly, when it felt as though there were weights the size of Lee's attached to them?

Maybe there was an Uchiha gene he didn't know about. Perhaps he had this ability to keep his eyes open against enormous strain because his family adapted to the need of keeping eye contact with the Sharingan to perform complex Genjutsu… Yeah, that made sense. Definitely. If there was a situation where you had to modify a memory, then surely blinking would be liable to the act? Sounded reasonable…

"Sasuke, it would be a lot more beneficial if you listened, hey?"

No… What had he done to bring down the wrath of every god he didn't consider existent? Kakashi had been so easy to tune out when he was talking about… About… Mission. Right. To him, just meaningless chitchat that was better heard in the context of mute buzzing. This called for a snappy remark that would tell everyone at once that he was in no mood to form words today, so they would leave him alone.

"Mmph," Sasuke said. In a very snappish manner, of course.

Apparently, his mouth also did not feel like forming words today.

Sasuke became vaguely aware of movement beside him. That would mean… Right, Sakura and Naruto. Mission. Kakashi explaining mission. Dammit, when had he let his eyes close? Open eyes were necessary to Genjutsu-- he'd figured that out a few minutes ago!

It was a good thing he wasn't operating any Genjutsu at the moment, then. Well, he supposed that his eyelids deserved a rest. After all, he had discovered that they were the strongest part of the human body, and that kind of effort is rewarded with some R and R.

"Sasuke-kun…? Are you feeling alright?" Sakura's tentative voice was annoying only in the fact that he felt that he was required to answer her in some way. It took a tremendous effort, but Sasuke nodded his head fractionally, his neck feeling suddenly too thin and feeble to support it. His back started to slide sideways down the wall he was leaning on, and eventually, he was lying face first on the hard ground, grass prickling at his face. Sasuke didn't mind, really. Grass had potential to be very soft. All he had to do was smooth it out underneath his face, and it wouldn't be so intent on poking him anymore.

The remaining parts of Team Seven blinked as the resident genius's right hand made an ineffective twitching motion. Even more baffling was the fact that Uchiha Sasuke had just slumped over, obviously asleep. In the middle of a mission explanation, no less.

Naruto sniggered gleefully.

Kakashi noted the dark bags under the boy's eyes. If they chopped off most of Sasuke's hair, dyed it red, convinced a tattoo artist of questionable credibility that it was okay to infuse permanent ink into a sleeping twelve year olds' forehead, and somehow forced his eyes open long enough to put in some coloured contacts, Sasuke would probably be able to pull off a convincing Gaara.

Kakashi remembered that he wasn't exactly supposed to do that kind of thing to his students. Shame; it would have been funny to watch Sasuke try and release an imaginary Henge when he woke up.

Instead of besetting the dark-haired youth with a monster bout of identity crisis, Kakashi crouched over Sasuke and reached out to prop the boy up, aiming to shake him into consciousness. He could be a caring, compassionate teacher when he wanted to be. The Jounin had every intention to wake Sasuke up, then send him home to sleep. The Uchiha obviously worked himself too hard. Probably trained most of the night away when the missions were over. Admirable, in a weird, masochistic sort of way.

Kakashi's hand made contact with Sasuke's shoulder, and he instantly found his masked face occupied by the underbelly of a sandal.

Collectively, the group of four all sprang to their feet as though they had just noticed they were sitting on the unfriendly side of a pincushion. Kakashi was checking if his nose was broken, Sakura had screamed shortly at the unexpected thrashing of her crush's limbs, Naruto was grudgingly awed that Sasuke had managed to kick Kakashi-- in the face, no less--, and Sasuke seemed totally unaware of what he had just done, though he looked like he was expecting to be attacked by someone hiding around the corner.

"Sasuke, you bastard! You kicked Kakashi-sensei in the freaking face! What's wrong with you!" Naruto flailed overdramatically, gesturing at their teacher, who seemed rather calm about the entire situation. Which was odd, considering a Genin had soundly kicked his nose in.

Sakura was uncertainly reaching out to catch Sasuke, because he appeared fit to fall over at any given moment. Kakashi, sure that the damage to his face was minimal, brushed the matter away and asked, "When was the last time you've slept, Sasuke?"

Blinking, Sasuke took a few moments to try out several different facial expressions for the occasion. He couldn't seem to choose, and changed from confused, to flippant, to smug, but eventually settled for indifferent.

"Last night, if you must know." With the adrenaline keeping him moderately functional, Sasuke was much easier to converse with.

Having a hard time believing this, Kakashi further pressed, "How long were you asleep, then?"

Becoming withdrawn and evasive, Sasuke reluctantly replied, "Five minutes or so. I'm fine, though, rea--" Of course, Sasuke couldn't finish his sentence, because the unknown chemical reaction in one's brain that causes a person to yawn chose that particular time to react in the Uchiha's own head. Sasuke covered his mouth politely.

"Sasuke, you're going to go home and go to sleep." Kakashi scratched his head, curious as to what exactly had kept his student up for so long last night, but thought better of asking, considering the boy's past. Lots of nightmare material there, and Kakashi didn't want to force Sasuke out of his shell. The best thing for it was to let him go home and--

"Aww, poor Sasuke-chan needs to catch up on his beauty sleep!" Naruto laughed loudly, poking fun at the overtired Uchiha. The blond was lucky that Sasuke was so exhausted, or he might have been in a lot of pain, Kakashi speculated.

That theory may have had some base to it, if Sasuke wasn't always intent on belying assumptions about himself. All weariness seemed to leave his body, and Sasuke's head snapped over to Naruto, face shaded over menacingly, and a glare fit to melt boulders fixed on the blonde.

Sakura actually feared for Naruto's safety, and Kakashi vaguely wondered if the flowers around them were really on fire, or if Sasuke was just exceptionally good at Genjutsu.

"Do I _look _like a girl to you, _Dobe?_" Sasuke's eye twitched once, and left no room for an obvious retort of 'Actually, yes, Sasuke. You do look like a girl' to work properly.

Naruto gulped.

Sasuke saw this as hesitation, as though Naruto were actually contemplating to say yes to the rhetorical, and merited it as a damn good reason to be even more pissed off.

Naruto remembered something he had been told to do if he ever ran into an angry grizzly bear. He backed off, very, very slowly. Sasuke was by no means an angry grizzly bear, but, at the moment, he was finding it fairly easy to draw similarities.

Maybe it was the unnaturally sharp teeth. Sasuke hadn't had teeth like that before, had he?

It was about the time that Sasuke cracked his knuckles and took on an offensive stance that Naruto threw all hopes of slow movements soothing the Uchiha's temper out of the window and ran for it, Sasuke taking up the chase.

With a slow sense of enlightenment, Kakashi realized that Sasuke, just like any other human being, got irritable when he didn't get enough sleep.

Not that it didn't make any sense, but Kakashi just hadn't thought it possible for the kid to be any more irate than he already was on a day-to-day basis.

Well, judging by the way there was a Naruto-sized hole in the building they had met at, the Jounin felt safe to guess that Sasuke was fully capable of pushing his attitude deficiencies into the red zone.

Sakura flitted around the two boys, gently suggesting that Sasuke might maybe, if it wasn't too much trouble for him, think about not making Naruto extinct; all while simultaneously hissing at Naruto to apologize before the Uchiha made his head into a kickball.

Speaking of _red _zones… Sasuke shouldn't have been using the Sharingan. Kakashi sprang into action before Sasuke did something he regretted-- like massacre his teammates. That would not look good on a résumé for anything other than 'missing nin', really.

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TBC (mostly because I'm lazy and cutting this 'one-shot' into a multi-chapter fic.) XD


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